


Or Ever Again

by Whreflections



Series: BSB OT5 Verse [5]
Category: Backstreet Boys
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV Kevin, Post Staples Center Show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 00:54:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3876301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first time Kevin's been on stage with his boys in four years, and all he can think from the minute it starts is how much it feels like home, how he hasn't felt this good in so long it's startling just how right it all feels.  </p><p>It should be comforting to be reminded where he belongs, but when you belong somewhere you feel you've given up your right to be, it's more than a little terrifying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Or Ever Again

**Author's Note:**

> It feels weird to say now, but this was actually the first BSB fic I started writing, like two months ago. I've done so much since then that just seems strange, lmao 
> 
> Anyway, here this is, completed and slightly edited to make it fit the way this verse has developed. ^^

As he steps onto the bus, Kevin realizes two things. 

First, that it feels almost as much like coming home as the stage had.  Second, that it can only be by design that the others haven’t followed.  _Brian’s_ design; he has no doubts on that though not quite enough time to decide what he makes of it, because AJ’s already down the hall and at the fridge pulling two bottles of water out. 

He throws the first and Kevin catches with the kind of reflex motion that only comes from a thousand repetitions.  The smile they exchange is so easy it hurts, an ache that’s hunger deep, that drives him closer. 

AJ drinks with enthusiasm, the way he does everything.  He’s got his head thrown back, eyes closed and it’s simple, such a goddamn simple thing but it’s been four years since Kevin’s had the luxury of sharing _simple_ with any of them and he can’t look away. 

He’s still staring when AJ opens his eyes to catch him.  He swallows, and his eyebrows raise in question.

“I just—“  He trips over the realization that he’d answered before AJ said a thing, laughs under his breath and keeps going.  “It felt good out there tonight.” 

Not what he was thinking, not even what he meant to say and probably not what he _should_ have said, but true all the same. 

AJ’s smile is beautiful but it’s too hopeful, too bright and Kevin should really stop him, should say something to remind them both that on this tour he’s a one-show-only attraction.

He should, but it feels more natural to close the distance between them, to let his own bottle drop to the floor unused and bury his face in AJ’s neck.  Like it had on stage, the tightness in his chest loosens, drops away entirely when he feels AJ hug him back so hard his hand’s fisted in the back of Kevin’s shirt.

It’s been so long since he breathed easy that he tells himself he can’t be blamed for his inability to let go.  After all, survival instincts trump everything and right then, it’s hard to think how he ever imagined he could live without this. 

\-------

For size, the bed at the back of the bus has nothing on the bed they had on the plane.  It looks big enough to fit three of them though, maybe four a little overlapping if they were too wiped out to care.  Still, it’s better than trying to cram into each other’s bunks, better than couches and floors. 

It’s inviting, but Kevin’s not sure they’ll make it that far. 

They’re in the doorway, too caught up in each other to keep walking.  AJ’s face is in his hands and Kevin’s kissing him deep, mesmerized by the contrast between the familiarity and all that’s new.  He’s known the rhythm of AJ’s kisses since he was 21, had him sober and drunk and high, eager and miserable and full of life and every combination of all of the above he’d thought imaginable.  This, it’s different in ways that have nothing to do with the beard he’s never had before and everything to do with the way AJ kisses back rough before one breath only to go almost pliant beneath him the next.  Like a convulsively grasping hand, like he’s trying to hold himself back from pushing too hard, taking too much. 

He can’t bear the thought of AJ afraid to take from him, not when he’d give any of them anything from his soul to his last breath if it’d been in his power. 

Now’s not the time to try to tell him, not outright, so he does what he can with his body instead, presses so close there’s nothing but heat and rumpled clothes between them.  AJ’s hands grip at his hips and Kevin moans first to encourage him, again when AJ breaks their kiss to mouth hot and needy against his neck. 

He can’t say how long they’ve been in the damn doorway, can’t even pinpoint the moment their bodies start to move together.  Even thinking that much, he knows that’s something he’ll have to dwell on when he’s back to a cold apartment not so far from here—there is nothing that comes so easily as the five of them, nothing that feels so indisputably right.  They mold to each other without even trying, a hypnotic dance only broken when the soft sounds leaving AJ’s throat shift higher until they cut off for a gasp of _Kev, please_ that hits him so hard he has to stop and breathe. 

Even if he hadn’t already known good and well where this was going, he’s never been good at denying any of them. 

They lose their clothes in stops and starts, make it over to the bed almost completely naked but for an unbuttoned shirt that’s still stubbornly hanging from AJ’s shoulders.  Kevin deals with it once he’s fallen back and pulled AJ on top of him, laughing against AJ’s collarbone as he slides the fabric off to reveal the swirling color of his arms.  Every one of them but Howie has tattoos by now, but it’s AJ who’s always made himself an ever shifting canvas, designs expanding and overlapping and changing so often it’s hard enough to keep up living with him every day. 

As long it’s been since Kevin’s gotten to _really_ look at him, there’s a hell of a lot he hasn’t seen.  His fingers trace over skulls and flame and stars, dance down still blank ribs like piano keys until his grip settles at AJ’s hips.  There’s undeniable difference there too, in a body that’s filled out now that he’s aged past long and lean, now that he doesn’t have the cocaine to keep him rail thin.  Kevin likes the reminder, hums low in his throat as he glides his hands lower to knead at the thighs straddling him. 

“God, you’re beautiful.”  It’s as true as it’s always been, but he still catches the hint of a blush in AJ’s cheeks that tells him for all he says and for all he’s willing to show the world, sometimes he still needs to be reminded how gorgeous he really is. 

AJ preps himself with a bottle he snagged from beside the bed, does it so quick and easy there’s a sharp tendril of jealousy that curls in Kevin’s stomach at the reminder that though he’s spent the last four years mostly alone, they’ve still had each other.  He’s glad for that, he is, he always has been, but there’s still an angry snarl at the back of his mind for the thought of all he’s missed.  He quells it with the moment, with the overwhelming shock of AJ’s heat around his cock, and a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Nick’s telling him he has no right to be jealous when he’s the one who walked away. 

The real truth, the _full_ truth, it’s worse than that.  He’s got no right to be jealous, and he’s got no right to _this_ either, to the way AJ’s making love to him like he belongs, like he has a place in this bed and this family.  The illusion of normalcy holds just long enough to hurt,  but Kevin’s hands are all over every inch of AJ he can reach and he can feel the shudder in the breaths he takes that aren’t quite even, the aftershock of tremors that skate down his spine. 

It’s second nature to hold him closer, to  murmur comfort against his skin, but Kevin’s hands aren’t steady either; it’s hard to lie well when he can’t even convince himself. 

Kevin can’t last long with how long it’s been, but he doesn’t need to; they’re both close already, both too desperate.  When AJ comes it’s with Kevin’s name on his lips, a breath that cuts him right on the line between pleasure and pain. 

They separate slow after, sluggish and careful.  AJ clears his throat before he speaks, his eyes hidden behind lowered lashes as he looks anywhere but up at Kevin.  “I ah...look, I know you should probably—“

Kevin tugs on his arm, just forceful enough to pull AJ back against his chest.  “It’s late.  Bus’ll be leaving soon and we need to sleep.”

 _We_ need, like he’s performing tomorrow too though of course he isn’t, he _can’t_ and this is crazy, it’s crazy and he should be leaving but there’d been something so vulnerable about the way AJ looked lying next to him that he can’t bear it.  Instead, he wraps AJ up in his arms, smoothes the tension out of his neck with kisses and a low hum that starts as nothing but shifts to a melody he must know but can’t quite place.  There’s been so many years, so many songs. 

It’s not until AJ’s asleep and breathing easy that the words come to him, sharp and sudden enough to bring out the tears he’d managed to tamp down on stage. 

_Whatever reason to leave that I’ve had, my place is always beside you_

\-------

It’s a strange thing, walking down a dark bus hall that’s no longer quite familiar.  There’s not much difference, just enough that he puts his hand out for a ledge that isn’t there and fails to move far enough around a wall that is.  There’s a low light on in the kitchen over the counter and he moves toward it, rubbing his shoulder absently and trying to decide if it’s water he wants or if he should heat up a cup of tea. 

Irrational as it’d sound to someone who _hasn’t_ spent over 50% of their life with the same four people, he doesn’t see or hear anyone behind him, not even out of the corner of his eye, but that doesn’t stop him from realizing Brian’s there.  He feels his presence, or maybe Brian’s eyes on his back.  The thought of the picture he presents makes him swallow hard, his head bowing forward as he leans into the counter. 

He’s only half dressed, and the Wildcat pants he’s got on aren’t really his.  They’re so old and soft the blue’s gone a dozen shades too light, but he gave them to Nick when he was sixteen and wanting something of Kevin’s.  They swallowed him then, but he grew into them, wore them just often enough but never to the point of wearing them out.  Honestly, he’d thought by now they’d be long gone but he’d found them in the back, in the first drawer he’d opened looking for something he could pull on long enough to leave the room. 

Their familiarity is comforting, wonderful, but it’s also a level of intimacy that isn’t really his anymore.  _They_ wear each other’s clothes and move around each other in relative silence on the bus in the middle of the night but they are four now; he only moves here and there in their orbit. 

And yet here he is, Nick’s pants hanging loose on his hips and his hair a wreck from AJ’s fingers.  All in all he leaves little to the imagination and he knows it, just like he knows that if the look in Brian’s eyes is half as reproachful as the one he feels like giving himself he’s not ready to see it.

He’s so immersed in his search for where to start that he jolts at the touch of Brian’s hand between his shoulder blades, though within the same breath he’s relaxing into it, spine arching ever so slightly up against his palm.  There’s a strength in the gentleness of Brian’s hands that never fails to ground him; he’s not sure he deserves it just now, but he’s too starved for touch to do anything but soak it in. 

“Hey.  Look at me; you okay?”

No, because Brian sounds more like home than anything he knows.  No, because thinking of Nick wearing his clothes on a bus without him was a blow he hadn’t expected.  No, because when he got out of bed to come out here AJ had rolled into the spot he left behind and seeing him sleep took him back to AJ at 17, to the night in Germany they’d first made love and he’d woken up with AJ asleep on his chest. 

He’s not alright at all, but whatever pain he’s in, he’s done it to himself.  They didn’t ask for this. 

It’s hard to lie to someone who knows all your tells, not that it matters.  They both know Brian’s asked a question he already knows the answer to.  Kevin nods once, pulls a half smile before he gives in and glances back at his cousin.  “Yeah.  Just thought I’d stay tonight, I mean if you guys don’t—“

“Hey, we’ve got so much extra space in here we don’t know what to do with it; you’d be doing us a favor.”  Brian’s good at lighthearted, but even he can only stretch so far. 

“Thanks.” 

“Anytime.”  From Brian, it doesn’t sound like an empty promise.  There’s the weight of sincerity behind it, would be even if his thumb wasn’t stroking Kevin’s skin as he said it, deliberate and soothing. 

Kevin shivers, lets his palms press harder against the counter’s edge.  He needs to put some distance between them, even if it’s only inches because if they’re going to talk about what happened between him and AJ, he can’t do it like this.  They _need_ to talk about AJ, because Brian’s got every right to be angry at him, but Brian’s anger burns quick.  He won’t stay mad; he’ll say his peace and be done and they’ll be alright by the time he leaves tomorrow. 

If Kevin could feel any of that expected anger in him, maybe he’d know where to start.  Instead, the only tension he can feel off Brian is a touch a fear, like Kevin’s a mirage that might at any moment shimmer away beneath his fingers. 

“Brian...”  Even his name tastes good, too rarely said.  “There’s nothing you can tell me about this I don’t already know.  I should’ve known better; hell, I _know_ I knew better but I kissed him and—“

“And there’s no other way that was going to end than the way it did.  If I thought you ending up in bed with him was such a bad idea, you really think I’d have given you the perfect opportunity?” 

Well, when he puts it like that…

 Brian leans in, kisses his bare shoulder so quick it’s over before Kevin can even look up.  The patch of skin his lips touched burns, even after Brian rubs his back once more and lets go entirely.  “Come on over here and sit down.  We should talk.” 

There’s a booth behind them, cushioned seats with a battered table in-between.  Brian takes the one travelling backwards, sprawls across it with an arm hooked over the table and his head against the window.  For someone so small, Kevin’s always wondered how he can manage to take up so much space.  Kevin settles in across from him, tilts his head for a moment to glance out the window.  The bus is moving now and has been for a while, California interstate slipping by while he watched AJ sleep. 

Across the table, Brian’s watching _him_. 

He reaches out, brushes his fingers across Kevin’s hair like he’s swiping something away though there’s nothing there.  “Was I wrong?” 

Kevin blinks.

“About _this_ , about AJ; I thought…”  He shrugs, looks down at the back of his hand.  “He told me how long it’s been since anything really happened between the two of you and…I don’t know.  When you said you wanted to do the show, I thought maybe it’d be good for both of you.” 

Kevin’s mind flashes to the wet heat of AJ’s tongue at his neck, the desperation in his hands as he pulled Kevin’s mouth to his, the way he whimpered when he was close and Kevin wasn’t rocking into him quite hard enough.  God, it’s been so long since he allowed himself anything but his own hand that he can feel himself getting hard just at the thought. 

He shakes his head, wonders if it’s too dark for Brian to see the flush heating his cheeks.  “No.  No, you’re not wrong, it was…”  Amazing, incredible, beautiful, hot.  All true, and yet he still feels like crying.  “It was good.  It’s been a long time.” 

“It doesn’t have to be.”  Brian leans further onto the table, far enough to catch Kevin’s hand and pull it towards the middle.  “Hear me out before you say anything, okay?  I’m not trying to push you; that’s not what I want but the thing is, when you left, we all agreed this wasn’t a break up, right?” 

They had; he remembers the conversation vividly.  Too vividly.  Usually while he’s trying to sleep.  He nods, doesn’t speak because Brian asked for silence, and because this topic always leaves him feeling a little sick. 

“You said you needed some space, some time away from all this and I know there were a few reasons for that.”  A few, yeah, but Brian knows better than any of them that Nick’s descent was the driving force.  Still, he’s supposed to be Not Talking and that’s easier, so he swallows and keeps listening.  “You said too you’d still be here for all of us and emotionally you have been, but you’ve pulled back from us too.  I can’t speak for everyone else, but I didn’t expect that.  Seemed like what you wanted, though, so I never said anything but lately I’m not so sure I shouldn’t have.” 

What can he say?  He feels like the truth should be obvious, but given the way Brian’s looking at him all worried and searching it’s pretty clear it isn’t.  He squeezes Brian’s hand, buys himself a few seconds with a question he’s not fully sure he wants answered.  “AJ, he didn’t think…”  Shit, he can’t even finish the question; the thought’s too repellant.  He can’t imagine a time when he wouldn’t want to be with any of them, can’t imagine that any of them would ever think he didn’t.  And still, he knows for a fact that Nick wondered, even if it was only briefly, even if he was high.  That particular memory isn’t one he wants right now, though, so he puts it away.  “It’s not like I didn’t want to; I just didn’t feel right being that selfish.  Hell, I still don’t.” 

Brian’s quiet, patient, waiting for Kevin to keep going until he understands. 

Kevin sighs.  “I can’t expect everything.  I left, and sure we said we weren’t breaking up but it’s not the same either.  I’m not here every day, I’m not…there’s no guidelines for this and I know that, but this relationship and the group, we’ve never had to separate them before.  To be honest, I don’t think we fully can because all this, the travelling and the music and the…living up in each other’s space 24/7, that’s part of it too.  And if I’m not part of that right now, what right would I have had to expect the rest not to change?”

“Every right; you’re still one of us.”  It shouldn’t hurt how quick Brian answers, but it does.  Still, it’s a pain that’s welcome, makes him smile just a little even though he’s blinking against stubborn tears.  Brian’s hand is right there to catch them, wiping gently across his eyelashes and it’s overwhelming, the way he feels relieved and ungrateful and desperate all at once.  “It’s always been the five of us right from the beginning, before we even knew it.  That’s true no matter where you are, no matter where any of us is.  If keeping things like they have been is what you want, if that’s easier for you…we’ll do whatever you need; I’m just sayin’ it doesn’t have to be like that.  You don’t have anything to feel guilty about.” 

“And if—“  It shocks him, the way he almost comes right out with it without even really thinking it through.  _And if I want to come back?  What about then?_   It’s exactly what he wants; there’s no denying that, but he’s not sure he’s quite ready for it.  Until he is, he can’t let himself say it out loud.  Whatever he’s said about giving him time, he knows the way Brian’s eyes’ll light up when he says it and that’s not something he wants to see when he’s not sure he’s ready to follow through.  “I just need a little more time.” 

“Whatever you need; we’re not goin’ anywhere.  Well.”  Brian’s foot nudges at his calf under the table, light and teasing.  “We are, but we’ll take you with us.” 

Brian’s smile is home and sunlight, mirrored in a thousand memories.  There’s so much Kevin hasn’t forgotten, but he didn’t remember quite how good it feels to laugh when he’s been crying. 

\-------

He’s been trying to sleep for what feels like over an hour after he left Brian when he hears the door open and shut.  The footsteps are light and he’s already narrowed it down to ‘not Nick’ when he feels Howie’s hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey, scoot over.”  He whispers, but there’s no need really because AJ’s out and besides, Kevin’s already making room.  More often than not, Howie wants to sleep next to them rather than _on_ them, though once he’s asleep you can pretty much position him anywhere and he won’t notice until he wakes up.  Nick and AJ, they’re all over the place and all over _somebody_ every chance they get; neither one of them sleeps well alone.  Brian, he wants to be closer but in a quieter way; it’s the intimacy of being nestled right up next to someone he wants.  With Howie, so long as he can feel that they’re nearby it’s usually enough.

This time, as soon as he slides into bed he’s all over Kevin like he can’t get close enough,  arm hooked around Kevin’s waist, his face nuzzled into the back of Kevin’s neck.  Kevin’s chest aches, and he wants to turn to face him, almost disentangles himself from AJ to do it, but then Howie’s leg is slipping between his, anchoring him in place.

“You and your fuckin’ giraffe legs, man.  You take up more room than Nick.”  But he doesn’t, he really doesn’t, and there’s plenty of space Howie could take if he just moved back a little.  Instead, he presses closer.  “Goodnight, Kev.” 

Kevin waits, only answers when he’s sure it’ll be even.  “Goodnight, Howard.”

 

 


End file.
